Nationalists block gay rights march to Poland's top shrine

WARSAW, Poland — A few dozen right-wing extremists have blocked a gay rights march on its route to Poland's holiest Catholic shrine while the prime minister was attending an event at the religious site.

About 1,000 people with rainbow-colored banners and umbrellas were heading toward the Jasna Gora shrine in the southern city of Czestochowa when they came across a police cordon that separated them from the extremists. The group of nationalists had an anti-gay banner and chanted "National Czestochowa."

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was addressing supporters of Catholic Radio Maryja at the shrine while the first Equality March to be held in Czestochowa was underway.

Morawiecki said the Jasna Gora monastery has been across centuries a "symbol of spirit, hope, of Poland's values and of resistance from evil."